The Georgetown Metropolitan

GM is at the beach this week, in his absence enjoy this rerun of his series on Georgetown architecture:

This week GM is exploring the variety of historic architecture around Georgetown. Today he explores the late Victorian Period. For Georgetown that means primarily two styles: Queen Anne and Richardsonian Romanesque.

First up: Queen Anne. The Queen Anne style was developed in England by a group of architects in the 1860s and 1870s. It was meant to evoke a medieval period of English architecture, although it was a bit of a misnomer since the architecture popular during the real Queen Anne was actually a formal renaissance style.

The Queen Anne style that dominated American homes during the 1880s is characterized by asymmetrical design with a variety of different towers and hipped roofs that form an irregular roof line. Also, the surface materials included a variety of textures such as scale shingles and the homes were often decorated with elaborate spindles and other fanciful woodwork.  Basically, the classic “gingerbread” home that comes to your mind when you think of Victorian homes is probably a Queen Anne. Continue reading →

GM is at the beach this week, in his absence enjoy this rerun of his series on Georgetown architecture:

This week GM is exploring the variety of historical architectural styles around Georgetown. Today GM explores the early Victorian period.

The two styles that dominated early Victorian architecture were Second Empire and Stick. However, there are no examples of Stick architecture in Georgetown that GM could find (the Stick style is not surprisingly tailored to wooden homes, which was not a popular building material in bricky Georgetown). So for Georgetown early Victorian architecture means only Second Empire. Continue reading →